This week has been a quiet one. We were going to go on a day trip on Monday but decided to just lay low. This week was Jenacee’s 6th Birthday (Sept. 11th - “go thousand go two” as she used to say)! We were able to sing Happy Birthday to her on the phone.
She was going to have her party the next day which was going to be a “carnival one” like Whitney’s. She was really looking forward to throwing the strawberry cream pie in her dad’s face. We also talked to Grandpa and Jeanne on the phone. It was great to hear their voices and to chat about things of the family.We have a secretary who works in the Temple who is going to get married in about five days-Tom has been doing a countdown with her since “64 days remaining,” it has become a pretty good joke between them. She is from Italy and is going there to get married civilly and then they will be sealed in the Temple by her Father, a patriarch from Italy, on the 23rd of September. Spain does not recognize a Temple marriage as being valid so everyone who gets married in the Temple has to do so civilly first, the church waives the one year waiting period to be sealed following this marriage because of the law. Little do they know just how valid and binding a Temple marriage is! The Secretary, whose name is Naomi, is super nice and about in her 30’s, and is fluent in four different languages. When people get married here most of the times the girl does not take on her husbands last name. She keeps her maiden name with a “de“ whatever the husband‘s name is. Then the children are really a different thing, they get both the mother’s and father’s name-this is why some people have many names (I think seven is the most that I have seen so far). They say this turns out to be easier to do genealogy! It’s very hard to know who belongs to who that work in the Temple unless you see them together. Because even though they have name tags the wife has her maiden name!
Two exciting things happened to me in the Temple this week on the same day. I was on the elevator and the doors were starting to shut when someone yelled "wait." Well, I hit the button that I thought was the button to reopen the doors-well, it was the alarm which did not automatically shut off. So we hurried and got off and walked quickly away! So when I went to prayer meeting I told the guy from the office what I had done and he fixed it. In the chapel we have organ music playing softly as the patrons come in to wait for the session. I went into the chapel and noticed the music had not been turned on. So I went to the front and hit the switch to turn it on. Well, it came on the with loudest volume possible! I tried to turn it back off and it wouldn’t turn off. 
(this is what the Temple looked like on the outside as she was having these "little"experiences. Luckily the engineer heard it as did everyone through the temple, and he came and turned it off. Apparently because of the power outage they had done some testing so that the power was turned off at one point. Apparently, the organ music goes to full bore when that happens. So that one really wasn’t all my fault!
Since we have been here we have had many couples to dinner. Not because we like to cook and entertain so much but because we can chat with them and get to know them better. We have two shifts of workers at the Temple and unless you are on the shift with the other couples you really don’t get to know them. Today we had the Peterson’s (Dave and Linda-from California) over, who will be going home in a month. 
They were the ones who took us shopping the first Monday that we were here and helped us to get oriented. This is their fourth Mission, we will miss them when they leave. They served with the new Temple President that we will be getting in November when they served in Argentina-they say they are wonderfully, kind people.
We went to our favorite Chinese restaurant yesterday with Berkley and Sharon Lunt. 
It is family owned (Chinese) and like we’ve said before, it just doesn’t seem right to hear them speak Spanish! They have their little children there and when you leave they give you a little gift. They have given me fans before but this time they gave us a little ceramic nick knack with two love birds on it, straight from the dollar store!
Well, because we were able to listen to the BYU game on the internet, we know that all is well with the power of the Wasatch! What a great game! Tom only stayed up until the middle of the third quarter when they were ahead 59-0 over UCLA. 
We have reminisced a few times about the time we have spent at Cougar/LaVell Edwards Stadium as a family and most recently with one of you as couples as a getaway from the routine. These are times that we will never forget, because we were with you, sharing time and getting closer as a family. GO COUGS!
Our webcam connections have been great lately. Good enough that we have been able to take some pictures from the computer as we are talking. 
We love seeing you and hearing how things are going. We love your emails-it helps us stay in touch with the wonderful things that you are doing. It has been great to hear from the grandkids on how they “love” school.
We particularly like the faces that they pull as we are talking!
We do love all of you immensely and think about you always. We keep pinching ourselves wondering what we did to deserve this great calling in this great place. We thank you for your support. Please feel of our love and of our arms wrapped around you.
Love Mom and Dad
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